This week we had a mini field trip to “Sekolah Kami”, a school that caters to the education of children who have to collect trashes for a living. In this field trip we get to see the area that they live in, the humbly adequate facilities of the school and the students themselves.

Photo Series

The younger students (whom we spent most the time of our visit with) are all so lively. They express eagerness to learn in the school, even with the considerably limited facility when compared to schools in cities. Most of the students who attend this school did not know how to read nor write before; those skills are taught to them in the first grade of school. The school is unable to follow government’s curriculum because of their limited ability to read at 1st & 2nd grade, and the amount of homework and things that have to memorise when using government’s curriculum is simply impossible because these students have to “nyari” (look for trashes to be sold) after school.

Other than academic subjects, they’ve also got art and cooking lessons as well. Honestly, if no one told me beforehand about their living conditions, I’d have assumed that they’re normal students in any public schools in the city. As city folks, we are often so busy with our own things and environment that most of the time we don’t ponder upon things that do exist out there. I personally feel this is a refreshing getaway from all the hectic schedules, deadlines to be met and the hustle of the city.

For the video documentation, I’d like to show the environment and normalcy of the school setting before proceeding to the dirtier, rustier parts of the place and finally, the joy and cheerfulness of the children despite of it. I also want to highlight their excitement on modern technology (most of which they’ve heard of, but never actually tried by themselves). Because the video needs to be 30 sec long only, I have to be very selective with the pictures. I’m currently editing the video on Windows Movie Maker (yes).

My idea (call it concept if you will) for the video is “live, love, learn.” because of how lovely the kids are (at welcoming our visit). I muse on how they live with a positive view on life despite the fact that their lives aren’t as ‘fortunate’ as children in the city (but if they’re as happy as they are, isn’t it already a fortune?). Their eagerness to learn new things is also a pleasant wakening – we often forget how privileged we are to be able to have new things to seek out and learn. These these three words popped up in my mind while scrawling out the storyboard for video, over a simple lunch of hamburger on the way back to campus.

I chose to do hand lettering for this one because I felt it would be a lot more expressive. This would be featured at the end of the video documentation.

As for the background music, I chose to use “Hyori Ittai” sung by Yuzu, because of the childlike, peaceful and simultaneously wistful feeling to the song. I’m using the instrumental version, and edited (not just trimming!) it to 30secs.

26/06/2016

Video screenshots

As of today, this is how the video looks like – I’m still working on the transition, and not so sure with the last few pictures that I chose (the transition from scenery to the students seem too abrupt). Will be working on it tomorrow.